Second Language Acquisition 'Interlanguage and explicit knowledge' ( part) of the project - Literature review Example

First of all, the project looked at the Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the notion of competence as well as a detailed description of interlanguage and explicit knowledge. Furthermore, the collected data was analyzed and the results of the research were provided, in particular TLU results of the occurred errors were explored to identify the gaps and variability in the speaker’s implicit knowledge. Last but not least, the study looked at the identified errors made by the L2 speaker and explored to what extent those errors were consistent or whether, they showed any patterns to the variability.

Lastly, the implicit and explicit knowledge were compared and the implications for SLA were researched. Literature review on SLA, Interlanguage, Explicit/Implicit Knowledge (this part needs to be corrected, all that is highlighted, especially in red). 16Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Second language acquisition (SLA)process refers to the way that6someone acquires one or a few foreign or second languages. Scholars who study second language acquisition look at the process of acquisition in a classroom setting and in the context of natural environment where learners use the language in a casual conversational interaction (Carter and Nunan, 2001: 87).

The notion of communicative competence in the second language acquisition, tends to include sociolinguistic and grammatical competences, insofar as the abilities in a second language (L2) to evoke using language in socially and linguistically appropriate ways (Brown, 2006: 195). Figure 1: Components of Language Competence Source: Brown (2006: 195). Figure 1 shows the sub­categories of language competence which are the common paths to be followed when analyzing the learner’s ability to use the language.

Interlanguage The orientation of the interlanguage was derived from the Corder’s (1967) Error Analysis Approach and was proposed by Selinker (1972). It represents “a separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from a learner’s attempted production of a Target Language (TL) norm’”(Palotti, 2010: 160). According to Corder’s Error Analysis Approach, the influence of the first language (L1) on the L2 could not be denied and the L1 can be taken as the starting point to predict the language errors made by the L2 learner (DeBot et al. 2005: 34).

Selinker identified four major sources for transfer that might shape the interlanguage’s structure. These include transfer of strategy, transfer of communication, transfer of training as well as transfer of other languages that the learner has already acquired or one’s native language (Brown 2006: 225). These ‘transfers’ are the major sources for analyzing L2 learners’ interlanguage characteristics. Implicit and Explicit Knowledge There are two types of knowledge that have been identified in the second language acquisition (SLA) which lend itself to this research.

The ‘implicit knowledge’ refers to a knowledge that the learner is generally not consciously aware of whereas, ‘explicit knowledge’ refers to a declarative knowledge of the language that the learner can describe if necessary and is usually aware of (Littlemore 2009: 63). The major differences between explicit and implicit knowledge are identified by Ellis consist of: (2009: 16) ? Implicit and explicit knowledge involve different access mechanisms and implicit know